English

Metallicity Gradients in Simulated Disk Galaxies

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2012-02-15 v2 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

The stellar metallicity and abundance ratio gradients from the fiducial late-type galaxy simulation of Stinson et al. (2010) are presented. Over 1-3 scalelengths, gradients are shown to flatten with time, consistent with empirical evidence at high- and low-redshifts. Kinematic effects, including radial migration, though, flatten these intrinsicly steep gradients such that by redshift z=0, the measured gradients of these (now) old stars are flatter than their young counterparts, in contradiction to what is observed locally. Conversely, the stellar [O/Fe] gradient is (to first order) robust against migration, remaining fairly flat for both young and old populations today.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1201.6417,
  title  = {Metallicity Gradients in Simulated Disk Galaxies},
  author = {K. Pilkington and B. K. Gibson},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1201.6417},
  year   = {2012}
}

Comments

To appear in "Galactic Archaeology: Near Field Cosmology and the Formation of the Milky Way"; Proceedings of 3rd Subaru International Conference; Shuzenji; 1-4 Nov 2011; ed. W. Aoki; ASP (2 typos corrected)

R2 v1 2026-06-21T20:12:16.468Z